#assuming even that that summoning spell was a real spell which is dubious

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

it's not like shes santa claus it's not to be taken that literally i know but it's so funny to think about episode 4 from rio's side of things

like shes been waiting for years to get the chance to threaten agatha with grievous bodily harm again and then she gets to, gets all ominous about it, probably expects agatha to run, maybe expects a fun little chase, probably doesnt necessarily immediately expect agatha of all witches to assemble some kind of misfit coven and get on The RoadTM

and then on her way to some poor soul she gets fuckin intercepted or maybe sped along by some spell that perhaps she can tell is agatha's doing i mean i dont know how that stuff works but if spells have fingerprints of the caster on them im sure rio knows agatha's, so shes like, Okay, Agatha, sure babe what are we playing, "i was in the neighbourhood ! :o", does a fucking jam session bc why not she has nothing better to do i guess, gets some Worrying insights immediately abt agatha and That boy, gets called away from her long weekend of agatha-stalking bc agathas proclaimed new best friends are doing as promised and dropping like flies

like this is hysterical. it's been 2 days

[incesthemes]

thank you for explaining!!! this is really interesting!

by god i'm assuming you mean the christian god and not the pagan gods they interact with. i do enjoy the (kripke era) deconstruction of christianity and the ambiguity of god's presence in the narrative and how that interacts with the very real and corporeal gods they find themselves antagonizing regularly, especially with episodes like hammer of the gods. the religious conflict between sam and dean is a theme i really like and thought was done super well, especially through utilizing john as a godlike figure to substitute dean's lack of religious faith and to haunt the narrative in the same way the christian god does.

i do think a lot of the lore is lacking and shallow in the show. early kripke era made efforts to pull from real folklore or at least make it look that way, and they were fairly creative with it i think, comparatively speaking, but especially as the show went on it got very trigger-happy and boring. like why does this spell require chicken feet? what are the magical properties of that? why does it work and how does it influence the results? many such examples. it would have been nice imo for the show to depict sam and dean as being much more knowledgeable about spellcraft and pagan folklore... especially when it came to defensive magic. i mean—it's all well and good to say sam and dean are against using magic in their hunting, but the anti-possession tattoo is a form of magic. the summoning spells they use are magic. devils traps and angel banishing sigils are magic. there's a dissonance between what's said and what's acted upon, and that gap leaves a lot of room for what other magic they can utilize to protect and defend themselves. lots of wasted potential, frankly speaking, and in the ideal version of supernatural that only exists in my mind i think they would both wear a lot more accessories with defensive properties (concept: jessica asking why sam never takes off his bracelet and sam stumbling through a lie to avoid telling her it prevents tracking spells from working on him, or something along those lines), or have more tattoos and warding etched into their bodies—maybe even some more dubious magic they use offensively, like fortification spells or even like those little resurrection sachets rowena has in her body, stuff like that. there's soooooooo much they could do and the shallowness of the text rings loudly in my ears at all times 💔

i do also like the very existential questions you're posing here with regards to what god is and what it means to be divine. imo a lot of these questions are answered by the text (seasons 1-5), but a lot of things are glossed over quite a bit. sam and dean both take opposite sides on the theme of doubt: sam has faith, while dean does not. i think both of their arguments are rather compelling, and the developments they go through between seasons 2 and 5 especially have a lot to say about the relationship between doubt and faith, and of course gnostic disdain. the uncertainty of the christian god's absolute existence creates the tone and gothic atmosphere of the (kripke era) show which i really enjoy. therefore when god's existence in chuck is revealed, i find it heavily undermines the original themes of the show. it's through god's precarious existence as a neglectful, absent father and the potentiality of complete nonexistence that the gothic anxieties can arise in the first place and position sam and dean as opposing forces on the topic of religious doubt.

at the same time, there's a lot of magical elements within the show that stem from christianity: demons are harmed by the "name of god" (which is actually referring to jesus christ) and are exorcized through latin (christian) chants, angels speak of (the judeo-christian) god intimately and of his work, heaven is real, hell is also real, so on and so forth. so judeo-christian constructions and concepts shape the world of supernatural, but the origins of their magic are never fully explained or explored until chuck pops out and reveals himself to be god. and you're right, i think they could have stood to explore this origin more. if god doesn't exist, then explain heaven and hell. did christians rip off the concept from another religion (hello zoroastrianism)? what makes latin so effective against demons? who invented the magic that made these mechanics work in the first place? if god isn't real, then where did angels come from? and to top it off, who or what made the world? which religion got it "right" if any did at all (this is actually something i was disappointed with in season 11 because they had the perfect opportunity to bring in proto-indo-european mythology via "god's sister" but instead they did, well, that)?

they take a lot of things for granted, both from a doylian and watsonian perspective. they never really stop to question these things, and the show itself doesn't either, and this slowly devolves into a strange christianity-reinforcing narrative over time after kripke leaves so the questions are never really given the opportunity to present themselves and generate more anxiety and doubt. real shame!!!

anyway thanks for your explanation. sorry my response is so long haha, i really like themes and motifs and most of all worldbuilding so you really snagged me with this one.

i wish the winchesters had had way more strange folksy rituals rooted in the lore. they SHOULD have been grappling with their own faiths way more explicitly and deeply. they should have been covered in tattoos of protective sigils, protective oils rubbed into their hands, charms woven into leather bracelets and necklaces.

[anexplanationofunfortunateevents]

A Tale of Red States and Blue States

Once upon a time, there was a state.

It was a large state, with vast stretches of country between its world-class cities. It had communities rich in diversity and activism and ideas – and it had a lot of resentful white people who were just plain old rich.

The richest and most resentful white people created a terrible blight they called “modern conservatism.” They set their wicked curse on the state, and then unleashed it on the nation with two Republican presidents – one lamentable, the next even worse.

There were many along the way who sounded the alarm, but there were more who ignored the danger far too long. The spell had summoned a beast. The beast was hideous and stupid. It was no good at anything except being a hateful beast. But the dark spell had done so much damage that being a hateful beast was enough for the beast to win, at least for a time.

In one version of the story, the state is called “California.”

In another, it is called “Texas.”

It’s strange to think of now, with a decade of sneering about the “left coast” and “San Francisco liberals” and blah blah blah baked into political conventional wisdom, but it’s true. The reactionary modern conservatism which held the whip hand on the backlash to the great civil rights advances of the 1960s was born in California. California voted for Richard Nixon six times: once as their senator, twice as Eisenhower’s vice president, and then three times as the Republican presidential nominee. In between those elections, Nixon of course had to win primaries. In 1968, when he was the Republican front-runner, he faced an upstart challenger who wanted to make sure he’d be racist enough to keep conservative southerners in the tent. That person was not a southerner, but the then-governor of California, Ronald Reagan, who would go on to be the next Republican elected after Nixon.

So what the fuck happened? Well, a lot of things, and I don’t want to pretend to do justice to the generations of righteous activism that pushed back against this disastrous regime. Democrats did occasionally win state-wide – notably, California elected two Democratic women to the Senate in 1992 – even though Orange County was practically a metonym for American conservatism right up until the 2018 midterms. But the turning point that seems to have gotten your average voter to turn on the Republican party for good was in 1994. Governor Pete Wilson, a kind of hard-right proto-Trump, threw his weight behind a hateful anti-immigrant ballot initiative. It passed, even though it was so deranged that it never went into effect because a federal court ruled it unconstitutional within days of the vote, because the California electorate really was that conservative. The electorate changed, almost on a dime. Mexican-American voters organized. Their friends and neighbors and fellow citizens realized that sitting back wasn’t an option. And now the Republican Party of California is a fucking joke.

This isn’t, like, the eternal winds of history blowing microscopic chips off the statue of Ozymandias. If you remember the Clinton presidency, this happened in your lifetime. If you’re a little bit younger than that, it happened in your big cousins’ lifetimes.

Part of what makes it hard to see changes like this is that the dim bulbs in our political media see everything through a horse race lens, where who gets one particular W is the only piece of information worth retaining. You win and you’re clever; you lose and you’re a dumb sucker who tried. Who gets power is really important! But if you only care about that, then you miss the really important trends.

Take the Georgia 6th, the district once represented by Newt fucking Gingrich. Its representative joined Trump’s cabinet in early 2017, at least in part because it was such a supposedly safe Republican seat, so there was a special election for his replacement. Traumatized Democrats and Women’s Marchers threw themselves into the steeply uphill campaign of former John Lewis intern Jon Ossoff. When he came up a few points short, our blue-check media betters tried to turn Ossoff into a punch line stand-in for silly #Resistance liberal losers coping with Trump by losing some more, SUCK IT, MOM! but the other, correct, interpretation is that Ossoff only came up a few points short in a district that was supposed to protect the kookiest of right-wing cranks. His campaign had functioned as kind of an ad hoc boot camp for novice organizers, canvassers, and future school board candidates who had previously been too discouraged and disorganized to take this kind of swing, and it showed Democratic party donors that the district was winnable. So when gun safety advocate and Mother of the Movement Lucy McBath stepped up to the plate in the 2018 midterms, her campaign had the infrastructure it needed, and now she’s well-positioned to be reelected because she’s doing a great job. Meanwhile, Ossoff’s organizing chops and the enthusiastic work his supporters did for Rep. McBath are a big part of why he’s in a dead heat against incumbent Republican Senator David Purdue.

That’s why I’m keeping an eye on the South this year. The presidential campaign there is interesting, but the real story is in those network effects. There’s a rising tide that threatens to make the blue wave of 2018 look like a light spring shower if things break the right way. Just look at the Democratic senate candidates. They’re a diverse group: men and women, Black and white, preacher and fighter pilot. Most are relative newcomers to national audiences, but only some of them are young. Jon Ossoff is just 33; when he was in grade school, Mike Espy of Mississippi was Secretary of Agriculture. What they do seem to have in common is that they are having the time of their fucking lives.

Here’s Espy:

Moving and grooving in McComb. pic.twitter.com/RANCRGGpX7

— Mike Espy (@MikeEspyMS)

October 31, 2020

Ossoff:

The people of Georgia are tired of having a spineless, disgraced politician serve as their Senator. pic.twitter.com/OdaYwFKzmz

— Jon Ossoff (@ossoff)

October 30, 2020

Senator Doug Jones of Alabama:

I know you’ve heard us say it before, but when you see this clip, it bears reappearing: This guy really is clueless. https://t.co/w9YOUHegCW

— Doug Jones (@DougJones)

October 22, 2020

Jamie Harrison of South Carolina:

It's debate night and y'all know I'm going to walk it like I talk it. Let's see if @LindseyGrahamSC can do the same. pic.twitter.com/TNABxsaTEO

— Jaime Harrison (@harrisonjaime)

October 30, 2020

And the bad bitch with her eye on the big prize, MJ Hegar of Texas:

It's about time Texans had a senator as tough as we are. https://t.co/8MQ8Tykmyt pic.twitter.com/bgPr5vtgdh

— MJ Hegar (@mjhegar)

October 16, 2020

Clutch those pearls, John! https://t.co/iWej8MrhtV

�� MJ Hegar (@mjhegar)

October 22, 2020

The spineless bootlicker Hegar is challenging, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, is currently resting his dainty patoot in the seat once held by none other than Lyndon Baines Johnson. As president, LBJ would aggressively push for some of the greatest human rights legislation in American history in pursuit of what he called the Great Society. That meant Medicare and Medicaid. It meant a revolution in environmental protections. It meant PBS. And it meant telling the one-party authoritarian regime in the Jim Crow south that America was done with their bullshit, they were going to have real democracy, they were going to do it now, and if they didn’t like it they could eat his ass.

Johnson was a complicated guy and left a complicated legacy. His project required an unusual leader of courage, conviction, and unmitigated savvy, cut with streaks of megalomania and dubious mental health. No architect but Lyndon Johnson would have built the Great Society, and no place but Texas could have built Lyndon Johnson.

Then again, Texas also gave us the Bushes in the late twentieth century. It gave us a terrorist attack on a Biden campaign bus just this weekend.

That darkness is real. So is the long, grinding slog to turn on the light. Like the GA-06 silliness, Democratic efforts in Texas get laughed at as some quixotic waste of resources by arrogant flops. In fact, the past few years of high-profile statewide elections in Texas have been on a pretty clear trajectory. In 2014, Wendy Davis, a state senator from Fort Worth who captured widespread progressive attention with her heroic filibuster of a 2013 state abortion ban, ran for governor. She lost by the ~20-point margin you’d expect in a year where Republicans everywhere did really well, but it was a vitamin B-12 shot to a perpetually overwhelmed state Democratic party. The 2016 Clinton campaign, when it was (correctly!) on the offensive before FBI Director Comey decided he would really prefer a Trump presidency, invested heavily in its Texas ground game. It was always a long shot, but even after the Comey letter and the Texas-specific sabotage by the Russian Internet Research Agency, Texas Democrats cut Trump’s margin there down to single digits. That is to say, they recruited the volunteers and taught the skills and raised the cash and registered the voters to carry the ball way down the field. And in the 2018 midterms, El Paso representative Beto O’Rourke built on all that energy to fight Senator Ted Cruz to a near draw. O’Rourke didn’t quite make it, but he did help a lot of downballot Democrats over the finish line and forced Republicans to light a few oil drums of cash on fire to save a seat that they had always assumed would be safe.

That growth has been possible because of a ton of hard work and persuasion, but it’s also been possible because there was so much untapped potential. As progressives have argued for years, Texas was less of a “red state” than a non-voting state. I’m not a person that usually has a lot of patience for people not bothering to vote, because the people who get to be loud about that are whiny, privileged assholes who can afford to be flip about the right to vote. But there are a lot of people who find it hard because they absolutely do know the weight and importance of voting, because they or their mothers or their grandfathers were beaten and terrorized to keep them away from the polls. They might make the same mouth-noises as the selfish dilettantes about how it doesn’t matter and they’re all corrupt and blah blah blah. But a vote is a tiny little leap of faith. It’s at least a skip of hope. And it hurts to know the weight and importance of that and to keep feeling that disappointment over and over again.

A key thing that Republicans in the South managed to do for a while, but California Republicans didn’t, was to let their misrule seem almost tolerable day to day. As outrageous as the overall trends were, as catastrophic the results were for a lot of people’s lives, it didn’t necessarily feel entirely irrational for lots of people to avoid the inconvenience and disappointment of trying to stop them. But if you’re just going to be a constant, unwavering shit show of incompetence and evil, infuriating people every waking minute of every fucking day for years on end, they’re not going to be deterred by inconvenience and disappointment. They're not going to be deterred by fucking tear gas. They’re going to understand that it’s worth trying to get rid of you, even if it’s a long shot. They’re going to line up to kick you in the shin just for the hell of it. And that’s exactly what millions of them have already done.

These dumbass motherfuckers radicalized Taylor goddamn Swift!

LOOK WHAT YOU MADE HER DO!

So yeah. People who had given up are fucking voting. Texas has already had hundreds of thousands more people vote than voted in all of 2016. BEFORE ELECTION DAY!

Vice President Biden likes to recite a poem by the great Irish bard Seamus Heaney. It’s about how you have to have faith that a better world is possible, even when you don’t have any rational reason to expect it any time soon, because it’s the only way you’ll be able to seize the most precious of opportunities, when “justice can rise up/ And hope and history rhyme.”

Sometimes hope and history walk into a bar to tell dirty jokes for a bachelorette party in downtown Austin. And they rhyme.

For a hundred and fifty years, unreconstructed revanchist terrorist sympathizers have threatened that “the South will rise again.” They mean the treasonous mobsters who called themselves the Confederacy.

Why do those losers get to define the South? Like, literally, they’re losers. They lost.

There’s another South. The terrorists cut it off at the knees, so it never quite rose the first time. But it’s always been there. The South the heroes of Reconstruction tried to build. The South of the Kennedy Space Station and the Center for Disease Control. The South of the French Quarter of New Orleans and the gay neighborhoods of Atlanta. The South of Barbara Jordan, Ann and Cecile Richards, Stacey Abrams, and the young women of the Virginia state legislature. The South of Maya Angelou, Molly Ivins, and Mark Twain. The South of the exiles of Miami and the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. The South of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Representative John Lewis. The South of James Earl Carter, William Jefferson Clinton, and Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Once upon a time, there was a colossus. The richest and most resentful white people feared it, for it was both great and good. So they hunted it mercilessly. They tortured and killed its most vulnerable people. They bound it and silenced it and told the rest of the world it didn’t even exist. But they knew that wicked lie was the best they could do, for something so mighty could never be slain by the likes of them.

The giant grows stronger every day as it struggles against its chains, and those chains are turning to rust. One day soon  - maybe in this decade; maybe this week – it will break free. It will rise. And it will shake the earth. Just you watch.

[koalas-koalas-everywhere]

Where did the idea that Merlin is bad at healing magic come from?

Ok, that was a clickbaity title, I know where it came from: that scene in the Crystal Cave where he can’t heal Arthur’s wound. Possibly, also his struggle to heal him from the poisoned arrow in The Coming of Arthur Part 1. However, although I understand 1) the desire to nerf him at least a bit and 2) the delicious irony of someone as good as Merlin and who would like to be gentle as much as he does being crap at healing magic but good at combat, I don’t think this is very accurate.

I mean, this belief is the farthest thing from baseless. I mentioned TCC, and I can’t explain why he’d be unable to heal Arthur other than lack of skill (beyond theorizing that the magic of the Cave was impeding him because he was supposed, destined, if you will, to ask for Taliesin’s help and agree to look at the crystal in exchange, which admittedly doesn’t have much support from canon, or Merlin’s general lack of magical  ability that caused him, for example to make a rose instead of a strawberry for Freya, although that was in the previous season). Then there’s TCoA, although that one’s a bit... complicated, for reasons I’l talk about in a minute, and, last but not least, there’s the Hollow Queen, where Merlin tries to heal himself but he can’t. Besides that, there are some instances when he didn’t try to heal people so we can extrapolate that he was unable, like when Mordred is hurt in The Beginning of the End, when Will and Freya are dying in The Moment of Truth and The Lady of the Lake* or when Arthur passes out in The Last Dragonlord. 

The one from TCoA is complicated, because as I said before, he struggles, and by the time the scene cuts off it seems like he failed, but when Arthur wakes up, he only seems to have problems with the wound itself, not the poison, and doesn’t feel the pain until he walks on it. Then, without a hint of the fever he had before, he walks all the way to Camelot, a day or more, until he can’t go on anymore, but Merlin tells Gaius the spell didn’t work, BUT then Gaius says the wound’s infected, not poisoned, which would be explained by the whole traipsing about with a wounded leg and no treatment, so... I’m not sure what to make of it. 

Then in THQ, there were the ameliorating circumstances of being... you know... dying from poison. It’s more a matter of power than healing skills (when he tries, his eyes flicker like cheap old lightbulbs when he tries to do magic). But we’ll count it.

So that makes it 5 times he would have liked to heal someone with magic but couldn’t due to what we can assume is a lack of skill (I’m not counting Mordred because I don’t think he’d dare to use magic in that case, since Morgana seemed to want to be involved and kept up to date in his treatment, proved by how she watched as he did it without magic), two of which are dubious because he seems to be at least partially successful or because there were extenuating circumstances.

Then there’s times where there were people to heal but the circumstances were... peculiar.

One was his father in The Last Dragonlord. He dies much more quickly than Will, not to mention Freya, which suggests an even worse wound than the one the woman who grew up with Druids, notable healers, said was too deep to heal. Merlin says he could save him, but Balinor cuts him off so he could give his last words, presumably because he, a man we also know possesses some healing skills, knew it was pointless. I really have to wonder if there was anything any ordinary sorcerer could have done (I mean, not to victim-blame, but I didn’t see Balinor trying to heal himself), that even Merlin himself pre-The Diamond of the Day could have done, so I’m reluctant to draw conclusions about his healing abilities from this.**

While he heals Gwen in With All My Heart, technically he does it not through any healing magic but by taking her to the Cauldron of Arianrhod and summoning the Triple Goddess, so it doesn’t help measure his skills either.

Additionally, (and here’s where I start to answer one of the most important questions in this post, which has remained unsaid until now, but which has underlined every single line to the moment: “what the fuck are you ranting about you big dumdum if all you’re going to do is agree that Merlin’s bad at healing?!” It’s about the refutation) there’s his healing of Morgana in TCC. This one’s also weird, because he does heal her, but he needed Kilgarrah’s help to do it. It’s possible that he only gave Merlin the spell, like he did with Sigan, but he has a strange sound effect in his voice when he casts it, so it could also be that he had some extra guidance from Kilgarrah to help him along, such as a power boost or an instinctual understanding of how to perform the spell. Like the last one, then, I don’t think this example gives us any reliable information on his healing skills.

But! It does start us off on the next part of this discussion, which is the times Merlin has successfully healed someone.

The earliest example of this is The Mark of Nimueh, where he heals Gwen’s father, Tom. He just sneaks in, puts a poultice under his pillow, casts the spell, sneaks out, and done! Man awake in seconds, cured by morning. Of course, success isn’t as interesting as failure (might be the reason why they continued this particular storyline by having Gwen accused of sorcery instead of just letting her live), but two things stand out about this healing. The first is that Merlin used a poultice for it, which will come up again later, so make a note of that. The second is that this happens before TCC, so it’s unlikely that Merlin just took that failure to heart and tried to improve. 

But, TCC is the next time since then that he makes an attempt at healing magic, which, whew, talk about a time gap! That’s two seasons, and at least 2 1/2 years! Make a note of this, too. The time after that is, at least, in the same season - TCoA, in which we’ve settled that Merlin seems to have partial success with Arthur’s wound. (“Yes, you’ve already said this before!” Just go with it.)

Next, there’s The Wicked Day. We know that he did the spell right because everything went to shit. Once more, he used aids for the spell, a potion and incense form sage.

The very next episode, Aithusa, without a clear idea of what they’ve been given, only that they’ve passed out and have difficulty breathing (he might have figured out what it was from the smell of the poultice that he found in the stew), he manages to save all four knights and Arthur from poisoning, this time only with an enchantment. 

Then he heals Gwen’s leg in The Hunter’s Heart. Once again, only a spell. Funnily enough, it’s the same wound he tried to heal in TCC, only in a different place.

Last but not least is the poison Gwen uses on Arthur in A Lesson in Vengeance. By the time Merlin has an opportunity to treat him, he’s moments away from death - Gaius says his heart’s nearly stopped, and Merlin himself doubts he has the power to heal him. No potions or herbs, although it’s interesting to note that he does motions similar to chest compressions.

So, to keep tally: his success rate when dealing with poisons and drugs is 100%, and it’s the same for times when he got to use aids such as potions and poultices. It also applies to all healing attempts not subject to extenuating circumstances (magical interference such as the Lamia’s spell or the blade being forged in a dragon’s breath, and when Merlin had to heal himself while he was dying) from TWD forward.

We can see him improve from TCC (season 3) to ALiV (season 5) - he actually makes significant improvement from TCC to TCoA, and from there to TWD and Aithusa. It seems like he learned from his experience in TCC and decided to make up for his lack of natural talent at healing magic by studying. And here’s where it gets really funny. Because we’ve established that there was a time, long before TCC, where he healed someone successfully, and that was Tom, in TMoN. If you’ll remember, around that time Merlin was much more likely to fail the first few (hundred) times he tried a spell, like the one to make that dog statue real and the one to enchant a weapon to fight the griffin. So, way back then, Merlin went, made a poultice, cast a spell and succeeded on his first try, when before (and after) that he’d have difficulties with new spells.

It... actually looks like he had a natural talent for healing magic. 

Okay, hang on! you might say. You spent the first half of this fucking novel talking about his healing goofs, don’t come at me with this bullshit now! you might say.

And here’s where you should pull out those notes I asked you to make. Because between TMoN and TCC there’s a world of difference.

To start off, in the first one he had preparation. He’d been able to look for and study an appropriate spell in his book shortly beforehand and, most importantly, he had a poultice. He’s had a perfect success rate when using those. Look at Dragoon - I’ve talked before about how hilarious it is that Merlin struggles to turn off a spell most have trouble achieving, let alone keeping up. In that first ep, Queen of Hearts, Merlin prepares a whole ass ritual to age up,*** but later needs a potion to go back to his own age. On the other hand, every time after that he just casts the spell and he has no trouble undoing it. While it’s conjecture, it’s a pretty solid theory to say that potions and the like, as I’ve been foreshadowing, function as aids when casting spells. They can be necessary, but sometimes they just give the sorcerer a boost. It follows, then, that any spell cast without them will be weaker, such as, say, the one in TCC.

But! He doesn’t use potions for almost any of the other times, either!

Well, that’s kind of tied into my next point: time.

As we’ve established, almost three years go by between TMoN and TCC, and Merlin doesn’t try to heal anyone in that time. He does, however develop his magic in other ways. By The Moment of Truth he can summon a tornado! By Le Morte D’Arthur he can cast the spell he so struggled over in Lancelot! He can summon a shield that can withstand dragon fire! Went against a Sidhe and a Pixie! He- okay, he got better at combat magic. You might see where I’m going with this.

But right then, he needed to heal Arthur! He’d done it before! But... he’d gone rusty. 

Honest to God. Yes, this is conjecture. No, I don’t have any proof other than what fits with canon. No, I don’t think it was intentional on the writers’ part.But in my mind and in my heart this is what happened. He was originally good or rather decent at healing magic, but after not using it and instead doing other kinds of magic for so long, during what were technically**** formative years for him as a sorcerer, that he actually lost the hang of it. To be fair, though, he makes up for it pretty quickly.

I didn’t think this through to the end before I wrote it, when I started I thought I’d just conclude there were more examples of Merlin being good at healing magic and that would be it, but putting it all together I’ve found a probably unintended pattern of Merlin having a natural talent for healing, but being forced to neglect it for the sake of combat magic. In conclusion, I’m sad.

*Scenes which I just watched to make this post and now I’m crying fucking hell what I do for stupid meta.

**I don’t apply the same logic to Freya because the length of time that must have passed between the scene in the tunnels and her death by the lake, not to mention the amount of jarring that she must have gone through in the trip, makes me think that there probably was a window of possibility there that they just didn’t have the resources to take advantage of. And. I mean. The strawberry scene. I’m just more likely to believe Merlin still had a way to go, magic-wise, but it’s also because of this that I’m not convinced that this is about him being bad at healing, specifically, as much as not being that skilled in magic overall.

*** I also rewatched the scene where he does it and ho-ho-ho-holy shit, his excitement at his idea is adorable.

****Because he was born with magic, he learned ways to use it way before going to Camelot, but this was a new stage of his studies that consisted f different things learned and different ways to learn them and different ways to apply them.

[thetimelesscycle]

Tales of Arcadia Wizards Fanfiction: Hope Dies Last - Chapter 2

Merlin makes an appearance, nothing is really explained, and canon doesn't know what hit it.

Chapter 2

If in Doubt, Blame the Wizard

Hisirdoux Casperan was not the first apprentice Merlin had taken under his wing. There had been others over the years, though less had attained the role than had simply wished for it. Morgana could make all the claims she pleased about his prickly demeanour and unreasonable standards; None of her acerbic observations changed the fact that, before Arthur’s war against magic, hopefuls had been lining up for the chance to study beneath a Master Wizard.

Most of them had been nothing more than tricksters and conjurers of meagre ability; Useful for dazzling the masses and emptying the pockets of the gullible, but with little to offer in the way of contributions to his work. Others had proven themselves more capable; As assistants in his workshop, a second pair of eyes in the field, and — somewhat rarely — as capable spellcasters in their own right.

It had not always ended well, even for those who had not strayed from the narrow path mastery carved between madness and mediocrity. Magic was as much a burden as it was a gift. Some of those he had trained believed their powers gave them a responsibility to stand up for their kind, a path that inevitably led to the same dire end for all who chose to walk it. Others had left as soon as their tutelage was complete, eager to pursue their own interests and simultaneously make their escape from beneath Arthur’s lengthening shadow.

His king’s stance on magic had cost the Master Wizard more than one competent assistant, one way or another, and Morgana had proved herself a poor substitute. Too strong willed and frank with her opinions, she spent as much time arguing with him as she did helping. With all of that in mind, it had seemed nothing less than a miraculous stroke of good fortune when he had inadvertently stumbled across a magical prodigy.

That probably should have been his first warning.

On the surface, Hisirdoux had been no different than the dozens of others who used their paltry gifts to take advantage of the ignorant. Except for the fact the boy had been stupid enough to ply his craft on the very doorstep of the king who had sworn to destroy all magic, of course. Remarkably bad judgement had not been on his required list of virtues for a new apprentice, and he might not have chosen to intervene on the idiot’s behalf at all had it not been for that single, panicked spell.

‘Real magic’, he had called it, and meant every word. It may not have been the most impressive spell, or the most well executed, but Hisirdoux had cast it under duress without fumbling his words and with no training other than that provided by his dragon familiar, along with what scant knowledge the pair of them had been able to scrape from the few spellbooks Arthur and his Knights hadn’t yet burned to a crisp. There was talent there, untapped, and it had been his focus on that which blinded him to the fact it was wrapped up in the disastrous form of an adolescent boy.

It wasn’t common for magic so powerful to manifest in someone so young. Hedge wizards were known to discover their talents at an early age, but the recklessness of youth was tempered by the limits of their abilities, any harm that they might cause to themselves or others mitigated by the mundane nature of their magic. It was different for those with a true gift. Merlin’s own magic had come to him later in life, and the mastery over it that allowed for immortality had sadly not been in time to save him from perpetually popping joints and thinning hair. Morgana, too, had been an adult before she began to show any aptitude, and its emergence had been triggered by a traumatic event.

According to what little Archie had shared of their lives before the Master Wizard took them in, Hisirdoux had been practicing for years before he wandered foolishly into Camelot’s maw, guided by nothing more than his own instincts. Given that the boy was most certainly not a hedge wizard, that fact was simultaneously impressive and terrifying. His own ignorance, coupled with that level of raw ability, could have easily ended his life long before Arthur’s knights drew their swords.

The fact that it hadn’t was convenient for the Master Wizard’s need for a new apprentice, but entirely the opposite when it came to trying to teach his student the dangers of the powers he wielded.

Hisirdoux had never suffered at the hands of his own magic, never shown Morgana’s tendency to lose control when emotions were heightened, never hurt someone he had meant to help. Whilst the gentle nature of his gift had no doubt protected him from the more dangerous pitfalls of self-taught magic, it had also made it that much more difficult to drum caution through the boy’s thick skull. Magic was the one thing besides Archie Hisirdoux had always been able to rely on in a world that had offered little in the way of shelter; Trying to convince him that it carried its own dangers and should be utilised only as needed was like trying to convince a knight his sword might bite and should be locked in a cage.

It was an uphill battle. One he had assumed he was winning, right up until his workshop was overtaken by a wave of unfettered magic in the middle of the night.

Within the space of an hour, his plans for a peaceful evening spent without apprentice or familiar underfoot had been turned completely on their head. What should have been precious minutes dedicated to his research were instead spent undoing the various enchantments his apprentice had cast to lock seemingly every door in the castle tightly closed. No sooner did he have that particular issue in hand then he was waylaid by a pack of agitated guards absolutely certain they were under attack. He hadn’t even begun to address their concerns before he was accosted by a furious Arthur, the king leaving no doubt as to who he deemed to be at fault for not properly controlling the novice wizard in their midst.

The latter confrontation had turned into a one-sided shouting match that had intimidated the knights more than the castle’s magically induced antics, culminating in a forceful reminder that Arthur relied rather heavily on his Court Wizard, and therefore executing his apprentice for what had harmed no one would be a remarkably bad idea. By the time Arthur had stormed off to stand down his panicking soldiers, Merlin had developed a pounding headache and the firm intention of giving Hisirdoux the longest lecture of his young life.

Another plan he was forced to abandon when he burst into the boy’s room without knocking and found himself immediately subjected to Morgana’s icy wrath.

“Don’t you dare!”

The king’s sister somehow managed to look poised even kneeling on the floor in her nightwear, clutching a trembling, tear-streaked mess in her arms. Her glare was enough to stop him in his tracks, and he closed the door without question on her command. Hisirdoux had yet to even acknowledge his arrival. When uttering the boy’s name summoned no response, he turned his irritation onto the room’s other occupant.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. I found him like this.”

Morgana shook her head helplessly as Merlin drew near, illuminating his staff in deference to the lack of light in the room. His apprentice didn’t react to the glow or to Archibald settling against his legs with a loud, nervous purring, the familiar’s agitation evidenced by the whiplike motions of his tail.

“And that?” Not satisfied in the least, he gestured at the cloth wound about the boy’s head, stained red near the edge of his hairline.

“Archie said he fell.” Morgana squinted against the brightness of his staff, eyes flashing to the door and back again. “Where is Arthur?”

“Handled, for the moment, though who knows how long that will last.” Long enough for him to sort out whatever this was, hopefully. His king’s patience was not a thing he would trust to stretch far as of late.

Morgana cast him a dubious look. “I could hear the shouting from here.”

“The entire castle just got turned inside out.” He still wasn’t sure whether to be more impressed or angry over that fact. “You’re lucky he wasn’t the one kicking in the door.”

“It wasn’t Douxie’s fault.” Even not knowing what had happened she managed to sound certain of that, holding his gaze with a challenge painted in her own. “You can’t let Arthur punish him for this.”

“We don’t even know what this is, yet,” he pointed out. “Archie, do you…”

He trailed off upon realising the familiar had finally managed to coax a reaction out of his apprentice, though the hesitation with which Hisirdoux was touching his friend’s feline form was unusual in and of itself. There was a stiffness to the motion that was at odds with the way the boy was leaning bonelessly against Morgana, and the irritation at the back of his mind gave way to a spike of alarm.

“Hisirdoux?” The boy swallowed convulsively, but didn’t look up, focussed with single-minded attention on the cat crawling into his lap. With a sigh, the Master Wizard crouched beside the trio, ignoring the loud cracking in his knees as he reached out to take his apprentice’s hand in his own. Hisirdoux’s skin was icy to the touch, fine tremors running through his fingers. Merlin frowned as he repeated the boy’s name.

“I don’t think he’s all the way back yet,” Morgana interceded, not moving herself, though the position could hardly be comfortable.

“You don’t say?” He spared a moment to give her a disparaging glance, then turned his attention back to the object of this ridiculous conversation. “Hisirdoux, look at me.”

There was no visible reaction to his words, though the hand held in his own clenched reflexively. The slight hiss from Archibald suggested the familiar had been subjected to the same treatment, even if he didn’t voice any complaints. Patience thinning rapidly, Merlin set his staff aside so he could use his hand to guide his apprentice’s eyes up to meet his own. There was no real focus in the gaze that greeted him; Hisirdoux looked right through him with only a vague spark of recognition, and the realisation hit with all the force of a dousing in ice water that this was something far more serious than an overreaction to a bad dream.

“Let’s see what we’re dealing with, then.”

Ignoring Archie’s urging to be careful, he gathered his magic, letting it travel in a wave along the physical connections between himself and his apprentice. He’d already been aware of the turbulence in the boy’s aura, tangible even now it was subdued, but examining it directly in this fashion offered a far more haunting perspective. Hisirdoux’s magic was churning violently, seeking an enemy to fight, yet even that couldn’t hide the jagged lines of shadow etched into the boy’s soul, spiderwebbing outwards, drenched in the distinctive stench of dark magic.

Pursing his lips, he reached out to prod the edges of that darkness, trying to identify what spell could have caused it. Hisirdoux flinched away as soon as he extended his energy, reacting with all the reason of a cornered animal.

He was flung backward in an instant, landing on his haunches. He hadn’t been expecting the magic to be that strong after the vast amount of energy his apprentice had already expended, though predictably the boy’s efforts were not without a price. He collapsed onto his side without Morgana there to support him any longer, curling in on himself as his familiar hovered in ever increasing worry.

“I told you to be careful!” The admonishment was given and forgotten in the same breath. “Douxie? Douxie! Can you hear me?”

The answer was too quiet for Merlin to hear, but he saw his apprentice reach for the familiar, tugging him close.

“I’m here. We’re here.” Archie’s voice was trembling. “Can you tell me what’s wrong, Douxie? It’s important.”

He already knew the answer to that. If they were lucky, Archibald would be able to coax the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ out of his wizard. Moving to retrieve his staff from amidst the carnage of Hisirdoux’s room, Merlin turned back just in time to watch Archie go into a full blown panic as his familiar fell limp.

He crossed the space between them in three strides, dropping to one knee and spending a few fraught seconds verifying the boy was still breathing. It was shallow, and Hisirdoux was too pale and cold to the touch for comfort, but his chest was still rising and falling. Positioning himself above the boy’s prone form, Merlin placed a hand on either side of Hisirdoux’s head, stretching out his sixth sense once more now that his student was in no position to fend off his intrusion.

“What’s wrong with him?” Archibald’s voice was plaintive, the young dragon back in his natural form as he stared up at Merlin with naked fear, seeking answers where none were to be found. 

“That magic was defensive,” Morgana pointed out. “He wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, he was trying to protect himself. Something or someone caused this.”

Her eyes went to the door, a dark expression on her face, as if she was already putting a visage to her imaginary villain. Merlin could easily guess where her thoughts were going, but he didn’t have the time or the patience to deal with royal squabbles. His attention was needed elsewhere.

Hisirdoux’s magic was quiet again now, drained in that last, frantic effort to ward off danger. It flickered briefly as he extended his own, but with no more strength than a guttering candle fighting to stay alight in a strong breeze. He was better able to assess the damage without its interference, the knowledge his examination brought him cold comfort.

The shadows remained, a blemish on what had always been bright; Heavy and thick and not his main concern. They were only a symptom, stemming from terrible cracks rendered directly upon the boy’s soul. As if something had reached within the very heart of what made Hisirdoux Hisirdoux and tried to tear him to pieces.

Not tried, he amended, succeeded.

He was careful as he studied the torn edges. Hisirdoux shuddered beneath his hands anyway, whimpering softly and prompting Morgana to reach out and close her fingers about the boy’s in an irrational attempt to provide comfort. Merlin very much doubted his apprentice was aware of her efforts, or of Archie’s determined rumbling as he practically adhered his body to his familiar’s. He let them be regardless, not about to divide his own attention to tell them so. Not when he was just coming to the chilling realisation the harm that had been inflicted here was meant to be fatal.

Even as he reached that conclusion the damage was spreading, the dark stains growing larger as the cracks expanded, like a tear in a taut rope slowly succumbing to the pressure. Hisirdoux’s aura dimmed just a little more with each minute that passed, his magic thrashing weakly in its final throes.

His apprentice, who had left his study only a handful of hours before, spellbook in hand and practically skipping with glee, was dying.

It was unacceptable.

Healing magic was not his forte. He knew the incantations, but each wizard’s magic had a mind of its own and his refused to bend towards such arts. It had never seemed such a shortcoming as it did now, Hisirdoux’s skin frigidly cold against his fingers as shallow breaths marked an uneven rhythm against the boy’s lips. Fortunately, he had not spent decades guarding the mortal realm to panic at the first sign of trouble. He was nothing if not resourceful, and it took but a few seconds to arrive at a solution.

Weaving his own magic this close to an injury inflicted directly on the soul carried its own dangers, and he pointedly shut out the voices of the room’s other occupants as he carefully laid a stasis field over the expanding edges of the spreading corruption. It would not last forever, particularly not if Hisirdoux’s own magic recovered and saw his meddling as a threat, but it would buy him some time to find a more permanent solution before his apprentice’s condition deteriorated further.

The chamber was utterly silent when he emerged from his trance, breathing heavily from the concentrated effort. He glanced up to find Morgana and Archibald both watching him with equal parts trepidation and curiosity. Ignoring the silent question they posed, he glanced about the room, frowning at the open window swinging gently in the breeze and the haphazardly scattered furniture.

Hisirdoux couldn’t remain here, that much was clear.

“Archie, my staff.”

Thrusting the weapon at the familiar and waiting only long enough for Archie to clumsily seize a hold of it, he gathered the limp form of his apprentice into his arms, gaining his feet and whirling towards the door in a single, smooth motion. Morgana raised an eyebrow at him but did not question, holding the door open and then hastening to keep up as he set a punishing pace through the castle halls.

Flying above them, Archie swooped in close to demand answers, “Where are we going?”

“My tower is the most strongly warded part of this castle,” Merlin answered briskly, not slowing his stride even when it forced an uneasy patrol of knights to skitter out of his way. “We’re going to take Hisirdoux to safety, and then we are going to find some answers.”

Author’s Notes:

Alright, so this chapter definitely includes a few head canons regarding magic which will probably be nullified as soon as canon addresses them, but for clarity’s sake I’ll just include the reasoning here.

1. ‘It wasn’t common for magic so powerful to manifest in someone so young’

Of the four true wizards that we see, Hisirdoux appears to have been the one who got his abilities the earliest. We aren’t given an age for when Merlin started using magic, but given that Hisirdoux went 900 years without ageing over 19, it seems reasonable to assume that Merlin’s magic was something that came to him later in life. We’re never told how old he is, but even if the canon explanation is that wizards age really slowly instead of stopping at a certain point Merlin would have had to be thousands upon thousands of years old to look the way he does.

Morgana is also an adult when she gets her abilities, and they manifest after Gwen dies. I have seen a theory floating around that the Arcane Order gave her that magic because it is golden and Arthur also has golden magic once possessed, but Excalibur’s magic was always golden, so it seems more likely that’s just the Camelot magic colour. (A point of interest, Archie’s form shifting is also a golden flash). So, for this, we’re treating Morgana’s magic as her own, and she was an adult when it manifested.

Claire did get her magic earlier, but only after first stealing the staff and then being possessed by Morgana and absorbing all her knowledge. It wasn’t necessarily something that came to her in the natural course of things. That could just be because modern world=less magic, but still. There was a trigger.

The hedge wizards we do see in the show all seem to be on the younger side, and we never really see what they are capable of; whether they are limited by the scope of their power or a lack of study. For this particular story I’m running with the theory that the ability to magic electronics into shape and charm objects etc is not at all on the same level as the literal powerhouses we see in Merlin, Morgana, Claire, and Douxie. They can fight, certainly, but not on the same playing field as the Arcane Order.

Douxie, by comparison to the other three wizards, especially if you go by Teny’s concept sketches, has his abilities from a very early age, hence the line above.

2. ‘…never shown Morgana’s tendency to lose control when emotions were heightened’.

Morgana and Claire are both crystal clear examples of the ‘magic is emotion’ theme. The scene with Morgana in Merlin’s workshop. Claire’s nightmares and her argument with Merlin in HexTech all have magic responding to the emotions of their wielders. Douxie, by contrast, only exhibits this once, when Merlin is killed. Even his younger self, who is a bundle of anxiety and enthusiasm and disaster, doesn’t appear to exhibit emotions with magic in any obvious way. The closest thing we see to his younger self losing control is his broom turning on him when it realised Merlin was coming. Maybe it’s just because rage is the predominant cause of those outbursts and Douxie’s anger is a relatively quiet thing by comparison, but it was still an observation I wanted to work into the narrative.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #186: Nights of Wundagore!

August, 1979

And yet this issue features exactly zero Wundagore Knights. Missed opportunity is all I’m saying.

Also, we’re back to faces of varying degrees of pissed off and indifferent on the cover.

AND. WE LOST MINI-VISION WHO WAS ALWAYS IN THE LOGO! I didn’t notice but last issue didn’t have mini-Vision! Whether standing and pouting or phasing through the A and also pouting he’s been with us since... ISSUE 93!

CHANGE IS BAD!

Also bad is Wanda’s expression on the cover. This is nitpicky but the terror gape doesn’t work for her. I accept that she’ll end up in distress quite a lot and some of that distress will be for dumb reasons like Sentinels wanting to use her womb to kill all life on Earth.

But I think an expression like ‘fuck you and your wi-fi shirt’ would be more fitting. Its certainly more fitting to how she handles it within the comic. Which we’ll get to. As soon as I stop complaining.

...

So last time: after a mentally dubious old man entered their lives and tried to kidnap them by stuffing their souls into puppets, Wanda and Pietro (aka Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver) decided to willingly go with this attempted kidnapper back to Europe to find out if he’s their real dad or whatever. They thought their real dad was the Whizzer but if your dad called himself the Whizzer wouldn’t you entertain possibilities?

Shortly after arriving, Wanda was convinced by Modred, the Wi-Fi Wizard (not his real title) to come with him up a spooky mountain. He offered no reason for this so she followed him anyway. Inevitably, it turned out he had sinister motives and shot her in the back.

The following morning, Quicksilver went looking for Wanda but then fell down a mountain after bonking off an energy shield. It was, perhaps unintentionally, hilarious. He was rescued by Bova, the cow-woman nursemaid who helped birth him.

On the Avengers side of this Avengers book, through a sequence of events that were partially but not entirely Hawkeye’s fault, the Avengers lost their special government privileges and times were tough for a while. They finally managed to get them back but in exchange had to suffer the SJW agenda of Agent Henry Peter Gyrich who thinks that the Avengers should have an African-American on the roster. THE FIEND. The takeaway from this is that the Avengers are under the thumb of Gyrich and also Falcon is on the team. Yay, Falcon!

And now: “The most bizarre Avengers epic ever told!”

Which. I’m just going to go right ahead and state for the record. Unless it has someone marry a tree, second-place is the best it can get. I don’t care how much baby fraud is involved.

So. Quicksilver wakes up in the cabin of Bova who makes him some milk soup to help restore his strength.

I don’t want to know the level of making it involved. And damn you Mark Gruenwald, Steven Grant, and David Michelinie for specifically making it milk soup, thus raising the question.

Anyway. Some hot soup. He’ll need it to endure THREE PAGES OF EXPOSITION AND RETCON.

Bova is dropping some backstory truth bombs.

Starting with her own backstory. She was once a simple cow but then the High Evolutionary turned her into a cow woman because he was going to make a lot of genetically engineered animal human babies and as a busy science guy he wasn’t going to be raising these babies himself.

During a period while he was busy making anthropomorphic animals and perhaps causing Jessica Drew’s origin story, a pregnant refugee named Magda came to Wundagore.

She was fleeing a megalomaniac husband with strange powers and dreams of world conquest. Afraid that his madness would corrupt the children, she fled before he even found out she was pregnant.

Oh and lets not be vague, although the comic is.

MAGNETO MASTER OF MAGNET is Quicksilver’s new daddy.

Although since Bova herself never found that out neither does Quicksilver here.

Anyway, since Bova was in charge of all babies she made an executive decision to extend asylum to Magda. The High Evolutionary was busy doing science stuff with Jonathan Drew in the towers of Wundagore. He won’t mind.

Bova and Magda became close over the weeks so that when it came time to cow midwife for Magda “it was more privilege than duty.”

Weirdly, Wanda was a glowing baby, thus heralding the beginning of Quirks and the hero society!

No, no.

But it was a weird portent. Baby Wanda glowed just as the mountain was doing so. That probably bodes.

Oh, and then Magda died.

Not in childbirth, as you might suspect. No, she just packed up and wandered off into the snow to die some days after giving birth.

Because if she were alive Magneto might find her and find out that he had children.

Wait a damn minute.

Two kids. Evil dad. Mom dies. ... Did George Lucas rip off this story when making Revenge of the Sith?

I don’t think we can prove he didn’t.

Anyway. I GUESS Magda just assumed that Bova would take care of her children forever?

Joke’s on her.

Bova immediately goes to the High Evolutionary like ‘I have these two extra babies, what do?’

(Also weird bit of continuity here: the High Evolutionary is remarked as looking weary from some great conflict at this point in the story. Apparently during Magda’s stay in Wundagore, the High Evolutionary had been busy battling the demon Chthon alongside his Knights of Wundagore, eventually banishing the demon with the power of SCIENCE and ABOMINATIONS AGAINST NATURE. Of course this all happened because some jerk werewolf who killed Jessica Drew’s mom tried to use the Darkhold to cure his lycanthropy. What a jerk.)

Anyway, despite being tired from kicking demon ass, the High Evolutionary decided to help deal with all these extra babies. As long as he can do it in the laziest way possible that doesn’t involve child-endangerment.

So the High Evolutionary summoned Robert and Madeline Frank (the Whizzer and Miss America) who were visiting Transia while Madeline was pregnant.

Transia has unexpectedly high traffic for such a tiny Balkan nation.

The plan was that Bova would just sort of. Give the Franks two extra babies after Madeline gave birth. And. Hope she didn’t notice that two of these babies are several days old instead of newborns and also don’t question giving birth to triplets.

This is a good plan.

Unfortunately, radiation makes fools of us all. Remember how that was a thing that Madeline had accidentally been exposed to a ludicrous amount of radiation?

Her baby was born deformed and stillborn. And Madeline herself died shortly after birth.

Bova tried to make lemonade out of the situation by offering two healthy suspiciously not newborn babies to Robert Frank but as discussed in the previous and now fake origin for Wanda and Pietro, Robert Frank (aka the Whizzer) is really bad at dealing with grief.

He ran the fuck away, leaving behind two babies with a bemused cow-woman midwife.

So the High Evolutionary decided to get EVEN LAZIER (but still with zero child endangerment).

Forget shenanigans and baby shell games.

The High Evolutionary just went to a Roma (and no, not the word used) tribe camped nearby, went up to Django and Marya Maximoff and yelled HEY DO YOU WANT SOME FREE BABIES??

Since the Maximoffs had recently lost their own children Ana and Mateo they responded most logically to this floating, glowing, shouting pink armor man and accepted these free babies.

And that is the completely straightforward and completely accurate backstory for Wanda and Pietro that explains why they had memories of growing up in a Roma tribe, why the Whizzer thought that they were his kids, and why their secret parentage is much more exploitable for drama.

And now that everything is straight I’m sure this story will never change again or get more complicated.

Despite how simple this explanation is, Pietro finds it all hard to remember. Bova attributes that to the trauma of loss, believing his foster parents had died. Then again, the multiple concussions he must have suffered in the course of his superheroic career constantly running headfirst into stuff may have played a part.

Quicksilver brings up that despite all this explanation he still doesn’t know who his dad is.

Bova: “Then take my word that you know enough! Please!”

More importantly, Bova tells him to get his sister and then get the hell away from Wundagore. There’s danger afoot. Ahoof? No, she has hands and apparently feet. Afoot.

But when she learns that Wanda had disappeared, Bova fears that its already too late.

AND FINALLY after all that exposition and retcons (which don’t get me wrong, I loved. I don’t think its good storytelling, I think its a spaghetti nonsense, but its entertaining nonsense and that’s what matters to me) we finally get back to what Wanda is up to.

She was on the cover for pete’s sake!

Anyway, she’s jesusing over the altar and Darkhold, just as is suggested on the cover.

Modred, the Wi-Fi Wizard, reveals some choice deets about his own motivation and backstory.

Apparently he used to combat the Darkhold’s efforts to hold sway over the Earth but after battling Chthon in Marvel Chillers #2, Modred realized that the demon was an agent of destiny and dangit it was Modred’s destiny to help him achieve a new world order!

Modred, you suggestible fool, thinks Wanda, more or less.

Idiot or no, Modred’s magic is far stronger than Wanda’s barely trained efforts. She couldn’t even weaken his Bind Person spell with her level.

But she can cheat.

She uses her mutant probability altering powers to just sorta create a probability where the Hold Person spell just turns off.

To Modred’s irritation, she jumps off the floating Darkhold as she escapes the spell. Rude, Wanda.

Even though ‘the master’ has said she is not to be killed, nobody said anything about “the administration of discipline!” Which thankfully takes the form of magic bolts.

Wanda is able to hold him off with her own magic bolts but he’s still far stronger than her. That didn’t change just because I hit enter several times.

Even using her mutant power to create a sphere to repulse his bolts is for naught.

As her defenses fall, she begs Modred to stop.

Scarlet Witch: “A-all right! I believe you! J-just stop! Please -- stop!”

Modred: “Thou dost... yield? Verily, I be disappointed. I would have thought thou to be a more determined opponent.”

Scarlet Witch: “I am, Modred. I just realized that I can’t fight you on your level. But there are other levels. Like, for instance, what the mortals of this world call -- a roundhouse left!”

PAWNCH!

I gotta say. I love the trope of someone winning a magic duel by decking the other person in the face.

Unfortunately (for Wanda’s own peace of mind), she’s too good at punching. And punched Modred right off the damn mountain.

She laments having killed a person, even if millions of lives were saved by foiling the plans of Modred’s master.

And then Modred shoots her in the back. AGAIN.

He’s such a dick.

Modred rants at the unconscious witch that she was chosen at birth to be a vessel for his master’s second coming and the time of that rising is now.

Dammit Modred!

Later and also elsewhere, Quicksilver prepares to set back out.

He thanks Bova for the truth bombs and for fixing his costume. But now he must find Wanda before-

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

GIANT SKY FACE

Ahem. Wanda is now an angry sky face. Or perhaps the entity now piloting Wanda.

She says she should kill him but she still has some human compassion from the previous owner.

So instead Possessed!Wanda just fires some warning eye lighting at Quicksilver telling him to gtfo or die.

Quicksilver wants to or die but Bova convinces him to go get outside help instead. Reluctantly, Quicksilver bows down to this ‘bovine logic.’

And yes the comic actually calls it that. How does bovine logic differ from people logic? Well in this case, the cow is smarter than the Quicksilver. Less impetuous anyway.

So Quicksilver runs down the mountain which is a lot less painful than falling down it but unexpectedly runs into Django Maximoff, the possibly dementia suffering old man who is Quicksilver’s foster father and really more of a father than Magneto ever was.

Honestly, its been changed so much that I don’t actually care about the Maximoff’s parentage. I’ve enjoyed Dadneto material, like him showing up for the most awkward thanksgiving dinner ever in the Vision and Scarlet Witch miniseries (the very same one where she gets magic pregnant). Him confessing to Finesse in Avengers Academy that the murder robots he used to send to murder Quicksilver for training reasons were actually programmed to take it easy on him. There’s good Dadneto material. I do get annoyed that Django gets brushed aside.

He’s the one who actually raised the twins but he’s not considered their ‘real’ dad because he doesn’t share DNA with them except I think the most recent retcon made it that he was the biological father but my point still stands.

Dadneto is fine. But remember Django Maximoff who did the hard parenting work that Magneto didn’t.

And let’s also remember Uncle Owen, Aunt Beru, and Bail Organa. Who raised another set of important twins from a big, menacing villain.

But I digress.

Anyway, Django went looking for Quicksilver but decided to tarry in the forest. He’s always loved this forest. Its where he fled to when those villagers burned down his camp. He’s always felt safe here.

Cue the irony.

As the forest becomes animate almost, but not quite, entirely unlike Evil Dead, and captures Quicksilver and Django.

Quicksilver does the thing that speedsters do when bound. Vibrates super fast until the binding breaks.

He then runs around in a circle punching wood until Django is free, although the old man does complain that Quicksilver shouldn’t harm the wood. “It’s special! And it was so friendly before I... I don’t understand.”

Quicksilver ignores this and NYOOMS away with Django in his arms.

And then nature loses its shit. Or maybe Possessed!Wanda loses her shit on nature’s behalf.

There’s suddenly

STORMS. With LIGHTNING and a rain of fire and rocks and is Wundagore actually a volcano how does it just rain fire and rocks??

Oh there’s also earthquakes that open chasms that try to swallow up Quicksilver but he NYOOMS through all these dangers to arrive back at the village.

The post office has the only phone in town so Quicksilver pamb pambs on the door and asks to use it to make an emergency call to--

THE AVENGERS!

Remember, this is an Avengers book. Guest-starring the Avengers.

Broodmeister Vision is on monitor duty so he intercepts the call.

Elsewhere in the mansion, the Avengers are eating dinner and talking about Iron Man while he’s not there.

Demon in a Bottle is still concurrent and we’ve reached the part of the story where an armor malfunction caused Iron Man to accidentally manslaughter a foreign ambassador.

Needless to say, this caused a big stink and he’s currently under investigation until it can be proven that it was a malfunction.

While he’s gone, Captain America is acting chairman.

That’s why he gets to sit at the head of the table. Being chairman comes with perks.

Also, a sort of weird details is that if they have them, the Avengers take off their gloves to eat. I don’t know if that is weird. I don’t wear gloves constantly. But it looks weird. Without her gloves, Ms Marvel looks even more like she’s just wearing a swimsuit everywhere.

Anyway, Vision ghosts through the wall and tells them to belay that meal, there’s grave danger ahoof!

Vision: “Quicksilver just called, saying that Wanda has been possessed by some preternatural power -- causing her to wreak elemental destruction over an area of miles!”

Captain America orders everyone to doubletime to the Quinjet hanger but he gets countermanded.

By Agent Henry Peter Gyrich.

Who offers the reasons that 1) Quicksilver is not an active Avenger so they’re not obligated to give him the time of day, 2) there’s no proof that whatever is going on in Bulgaria is a threat to US security, and 3) come on guys, don’t just be flying where you like we don’t need another international incident like the one Iron Man caused. No, not killing the ambassador. ANOTHER international incident. The man is rolling in them.

Cap has had enough and stalks off to make a phone call.

And just one panel of Beast making implied threats towards Gyrich later, the agent receives a phone call.

He yells into the receiver that he’s not to be disturbed but WHOOPS just yelled at his boss.

Agent Henry Peter Gyrich: “That was the *ahem* Commander-in-Chief. He’s requested that the Avengers leave on a, uh, ‘good-will tour’ or Bulgaria. Right away. you can wipe that smirk off your face now, captain.”

It is quite an impressive smirk.

And wow. To think that Cap could just go over Gyrich’s head like that by calling Jimmy Carter.

I can only speculate that he didn’t do it until now because Gyrich was an asshole but had a point.

Anyway, Gyrich is still an asshole.

Out of spite or assholishness or spiteful assholishness, he demands that Vision stay at the mansion.

Because he is on the duty roster for monitor duty and per regulations someone must be on monitor duty at all times.

(I refuse to believe that this regulation is ever actually obeyed. The Avengers almost never leave someone at home)

Vision takes issue with this and offers to introduce Gyrich to punches but Cap stops him.

One punch and they could lose all those privileges that they’ve worked so hard off-panel to get back! And apparently Cap only has so many favors to call in with Jimmy Carter!

But he promises that the Avengers will find Wanda and take care of her.

Vision agrees but darkly promises that this matter will be settled.

And then he tries to take over the world. Well, not for years and under the influence of an alien supercomputer and probably not directly related to this. But I imagine that once he had taken over the government, he would have had Gyrich reassigned to Antarctica.

Meanwhile, six time zones away in Transia, Quicksilver worries that due to a bad connection the Avengers may not have understood his message.

And then he explodes.

Because Possessed!Wanda has found them.

Chthon!Wanda: “No, you old fool! For at least, I’ve purged this vessel of its last taint of humanity, it’s last wisp of soul! There is no Ana Maximoff! There is not Wanda Frank! Now, there is only... CHTHON!”

And Wanda has a new evil and thus sexy costume. Its actually kind of stylish.

Although one must wonder why a being like Chthon would even dress his host body up in an evil, sexy outfit. Maybe even demons are bound by the tropes of the genre.

Also, dammit Chthon! Bova just sewed up Quicksilver’s outfit and here you are blowing it to tatters again!

Have you no respect for the bovine logic of the cow-woman midwife!

You truly are heinous!

Next time: The call of the mountain THING!

Damn. That’s a great title.

Follow @essential-avengers. Its the dedicated sideblog for this series. Its... eventually going to be caught up.